Russian seafood processing sector gearing up for three billion ruble upgrade

Russian seafood processing sector is gearing up for three billion ruble upgrade, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to a report delivered by Russia's fishery head Andrey Krainy.

At present the problem of technical refurbishment of the Russian fish processing complex has grown especially urgent. The Government has already agreed with the Federal Fisheries Agency in securing interest rate subsidies for fish processing and for the development of the federal leasing.

Besides, the Agency has prepared a number of priority measures to develop processing which they think necessary to be included into the list of anti-crisis measured of the nation's Government.

Among them, the main fishery body thinks it necessary to:

• Exempt fish processing and aquaculture equipment which has no analogues in Russia from import duties;
• Exempt fishing vessels built or purchased abroad before 1 January 2009 from the VAT and customs duties when they are imported to the territory of the Russian Federation.

It is also necessary to settle the issue of switching to the single agricultural tax for fish processors, as well as to grant a three-year tax holiday to newly established fish processors in order to accumulate more funds from decreased tax burden for production refurbishment.

Such measures of indirect financial character will be much more efficient than injections of budget funds to the economy, Krainy said.

In order to support small business, in 2009 the Agency is going to develop a target program.

The Agency has also embarked on the task to develop measures of customs and tariff regulation as to seafood products. More specifically, the body offers a stage-by-stage increase of import duty rates for products with low level of processing, along with import duties for value added products, the measure aimed to block the outflow of the raw fish demanded by the domestic producers and to encourage domestic production of value added seafood.

Quality of seafood products on the national market has been of special concern of the Federal Fisheries Agency. In 2009 the Technical Regulation for seafood production and turnover is to be approved so as to provide conditions for increased seafood safety and competiveness.

In the event of realization of the above measures fish businesses would be able to carry out a number of investment projects on fish processing at a total value of more than 3 billion RUB.